Change accounts on Steam link

[dannyhefc69]

So I like that this has been made and nearly ready for purchase. But I want to get 1 for my son's room and scrap his Xbox 360. But I want him to have his own steam account and not use mine. Is this possible to switch to a different steam account or will I have to log out of mine and log into his and my pc before he turns on the link? Hope that made sense ha

[ToaStarr]

I think the Steam Link will remember the different accounts in the main/log in menu, but you have to log out/log in on your pc and you can't use the Steam Links the same time...

[dannyhefc69]

So he can't just turn my pc on and choose his account on the link, I'll have to log me out and log him in on my pc first

[Dynamix]

Steam settings there is an option for family. So i assume that you create him a steam account then share your pc with him.

[streetmeat]

You can't just turn on the PC and choose the user from the Steam Link, even if the passwords are saved on the PC account. You need to stop streaming, get up and go to the host computer and switch accounts, then go back to the steam link and re-connect.

The family options are for sharing a library between accounts, not sharing a steam link between accounts.

[dannyhefc69]

Originally posted by streetbeat:

You can't just turn on the PC and choose the user from the Steam Link, even if the passwords are saved on the PC account. You need to stop streaming, get up and go to the host computer and switch accounts, then go back to the steam link and re-connect.

The family options are for sharing a library between accounts, not sharing a steam link between accounts.

Ye iv got it all under control now iv got 2 steam links. I use an app on my phone that mirrors my pc. So when he wants to use his link i just log him in from my phone and vise versa when i wanna use my link. Would be alot easyer if you could select accounts on the link but its not a deal breaker by any means

[Remlish]

I believe if you install a second copy on steam to a separate drive and install sandboxie you can run 2 instances. I do not have 2 steam links to test this with so I dunno

Steps I would assume would work.

1) sign out of steam
2) install steam to a 2nd drive or partition.
3) download and install sandboxie to the same drive
4) add the new install of steam to your sand box
5) open the new download of steam via the sandboxie menu and sign in.
6) in steam settings point the game directory to your main steam account.
7) open your normal steam exe and sign back in.
8) set up family sharing across the 2 accounts.

In theory this setup will allow you to pair his steam link to his own account and give him access to all of your games with his own achievements but saves may be shared since it's the same install folder.

(I would assume for the initial pairing be signed out of your main account , if it doesn't detect the pc sign into his account with your normal exe and pair then switch and test)

[dannyhefc69]

Originally posted by Remlish:

I believe if you install a second copy on steam to a separate drive and install sandboxie you can run 2 instances. I do not have 2 steam links to test this with so I dunno

Steps I would assume would work.

1) sign out of steam
2) install steam to a 2nd drive or partition.
3) download and install sandboxie to the same drive
4) add the new install of steam to your sand box
5) open the new download of steam via the sandboxie menu and sign in.
6) in steam settings point the game directory to your main steam account.
7) open your normal steam exe and sign back in.
8) set up family sharing across the 2 accounts.

In theory this setup will allow you to pair his steam link to his own account and give him access to all of your games with his own achievements but saves may be shared since it's the same install folder.

(I would assume for the initial pairing be signed out of your main account , if it doesn't detect the pc sign into his account with your normal exe and pair then switch and test)

Thanks bud, but it all seems abit extreme for what i want to do lol. Iv already shared accounts so he has all my games in his libary and he has his own saves (thank god lol). All i wanted to do was turn the link on and have a choose what account to sign into, both accounts and installed games are on the same pc so i cant see it being a problem......

[Remlish]

Justification are your department , i just try to come up with a Yea when everyone else says Ney. Its a bit complicated , but its the only free simplification.
Alternativly you can always use this as an excuse to buy/build yourself a new PC lol.
With family sharing active you can both play games at the same time, just not the same game at the same time.

[dannyhefc69]

Originally posted by Remlish:

Justification are your department , i just try to come up with a Yea when everyone else says Ney. Its a bit complicated , but its the only free simplification.
Alternativly you can always use this as an excuse to buy/build yourself a new PC lol.
With family sharing active you can both play games at the same time, just not the same game at the same time.

Good on you bud, problem solving is a must for pc gamers lol. And a new build has crossed my mind, going to wait till arctic islands and pascal have been released before i upgrade. If i upgraded now i wouldnt see much of a performance boost, id basically be building a second pc just so i dont have to log in and out of steam all the time for the steam link

[0.0_french]

Hi guys,

This problem has been bothering me for a while now and finally I've come up with a workable solution (with batch scripting).

My first attempt was to kill all steam processes using a script and start steam again via command line (e.g. steam -login un pw).
This worked when calling the script on the local PC but was useless via Steam Link.
I then came up with a solution that reboots your PC and logs in the other account.
For this solution you will have to do a couple of things:
1. Make sure steam on your PC does not boot by itself when the PC boots (the script does that for you)
2. Do not check the checkbox "boot into big picture mode" on your PC
3 Add the script below to a batch file and use some tool (e.g. http://www.f2ko.de/en/b2e.php) to convert the batch to exe
4 Once you have the exe, add it as a non-steam game to your library
5 I have made two batch files/exes. When playing via account X you need to be able to go to account Y but off course you also want to be able to go to account X when you are playing via account Y.

Be aware that the script restarts the host PC, so it depends on your PC how long the process will take. At least you don't have to get up and walk to the PC, which off course we all want to avoid because we are lazy af. :D

Copy and paste the following into a script and off course, fill in {PCUSERNAME} and {UN} and {PW}:
@echo off
set filepath="C:\Users\{PCUSERNAME}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\"

IF EXIST %filepath%\startSteam.bat (
del %filepath%\startSteam.bat
goto write
) ELSE (
goto write
)

:write
@echo steam -login {UN} {PW} > %filepath%\startSteam.bat

shutdown -r -t 2
EXIT

[xhonzi]

Clever!

[dev0]

Originally posted by 0.0_french:

This worked when calling the script on the local PC but was useless via Steam Link.

Sorry for resurrecting this old thread, but I'd like to understand why this was useless via Steam Link? Is it because the batch/exe process gets terminated as soon as Steam gets killed? Maybe using some other mechanism to run the process that terminates and restarts Steam would work? Something equivalent to nohup on Unix/Linux? E.g. maybe it can be run as a scheduled task?